What is Resilience?

I asked this question on TikTok and I received a few replies, and in these replies, they all emphasized the ability to keep going even when you’re not confident in your own ability. According to the American Psychological Association (APA):

'Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.'

From this definition alone, we are made aware of the fact that the essence of these responses rings true. To have resilience is to have the qualities of adaptation, flexibility, and perseverance. These three qualities are not exhaustive, but they do allow us to explore the importance of having resilience as a tool in our metaphorical toolbox, kind of like where we keep our elbow grease.

Who can be resilient?

Maybe you’re thinking you must be born with resilience, like some type of physical attribute we get from our genes. Perhaps you’re just here to enlighten yourself, and I should just get to it. Anyone can be resilient. There's no one on this planet that is not able to cultivate and to hone that resilience tool.

We work for the things we need, like a place to live, fresh food and water, clothing on our backs, and our health. These are basic needs that all humans deserve to have access to and have the ability to improve. We show to ourselves, the people around us, and to the Creator -our source- that we are able to grind and work for our necessities. From this source, it allows for your needs to be met and all to be taken care of in divine timing. But what about putting all of that effort into other things? What about living the life we so desperately crave?

It’s all about resilience at the end of the day.

Where does resilience come from?

It is not just mere hard work, because if it were anyone who simply works hard may feel the spirit of resilience, and nor is it mere strategic decision making. Resilience is something that we cultivate and nurture over time, like a muscle. It comes from taking the necessary actions to get things done and to keep going even when you feel like you cannot. From what I have experienced in my own life, I feel it in my heart and my gut. It’s the feeling of “I need to keep going,” and “I need to do whatever it takes.”

To you, that might just be a thought you have, or maybe you have no idea. Regardless, it starts with a thought, an idea, a goal, and it becomes a part of who you are and how you show up. It is perseverance to do the process and move to the best of your ability.

"When you can't run, you crawl. And when you can't crawl, when you can't do that..." "You find someone to carry you."

-- Firefly's Zoe Washburne (Gina Torres) (Firefly -- S01E14)

You do what you can with what you have, and if you don’t have it, you can safely bet your last dollar that there’s someone who can give you that assistance. This experience/life is A Mindful Adventure we learn, grow, and thrive together. We uplift and support one another on our journey back to source. As people, we are meant to commune with one another, and it’s a part of why I started this blog.

The perseverance to press on and continue even when it feels impossible, when it feels as if the whole world is crashing down, is how you build and strengthen that resilience muscle. That, in turn, makes the tool that much more powerful and a critical addition to your toolbox, and as a bonus, you can add that elbow grease to the mix. This tool is multifaceted, meaning you have many ways you can use it. It’s not a unitasker, it may be applied to many different tasks.

How do we use resilience?

When thinking about the many sides to resilience and your ability to act upon them, it opens the question of when and where to use this tool, or muscle, as it were. I think resilience works beautifully when you use it for expanding your life and pursuing things that uplift you. We typically use it to take care of our physical needs, yet we can also use it to improve our lives. It’s not even selfish and in fact using resilience for yourself and to uplift your life is a beautiful form of self-love and self-care. Using resilience in this way allows us to show ourselves, our loved ones, and the Creator that we care about our basic necessities just as much as we care about the quality of our lives. This love you display for yourself allows for Divine guidance to come and assist you in the background.

Think of it this way, in a store, there’s a back-end, where customers aren’t allowed, and a front-end where the whole customer experience is had. We know in this back-end area, there is a possibility that our provisions -what we came into the store for- are located just out of our reach. So, we need to ask for assistance from an employee to go into the back and retrieve the product we’re looking for. Without doing our part and actively seeking help, asking for the product, and waiting for the employee to respond or return with the verdict, we will never know if they had what we were looking for. The same can be applied to the Universe, Higher Power, God, or Source. If we don’t show up and be diligent in our inquiries or our mission, we will remain where we started without the thing we were looking for.

We must persevere even when it seems as though the answers might not come, because that item might be tucked away in the back or locked in a shipping container. The worker you asked might need assistance from another worker or a supervisor to bring you your item. It might take 10 minutes of waiting around, but you’ll get your answer if you hang on and wait.

When is resilience appropriate?

It can be kind of nerve-wracking to decide to go all in on something and decide that you’ll do all that it takes for it to get done. It can also be confusing when you become aware that you have to stop putting in the effort you were so diligent in investing time and energy into. So I have some things that I do to gauge these types of things.

1. I don’t go all in unless it’s something edifying.
2. I have no reason to go all in on something that is going to drag me down. If it’s not going to uplift me and make me stronger or better, then I don’t want it.
3. I don’t push for things that do not want me back.
4. If I am putting 100% effort in and the thing I’m pursuing seems to only get further away, I stop. And I don’t mean if there are hiccups in the process, I just abandon ship, I mean the same side of the magnet level repulsion.
5. Where you’re working hard but all you get in return is a drained battery, hopeless energy follows you, and the phrase “Just one more day”, turns into a nightmare for you.
6. Your body might even make you sick, to the point that the thing becomes impossible to complete. Your body knows more than you might give it credit.
7. I don’t push past red flags and warnings.
8. If I see a red flag, like the thing/goal is not lining up with my frequency or is not benefiting me as a whole, I pause and reevaluate.
9. It is ok to take a step back and look at where you came from. This allows you to see if the steps you're taking and the experiences you are going through are getting you closer to the goal or farther away.
10. It is not ok to ignore what’s in front of you and to explain it away as if it’s not bothering you. Your feelings are valid, and it is how you respond to them that counts.
11. If I get a warning from the Universe, I sit up, metaphorically, and I ask why I was warned and what I am being warned about.
12. Usually, the warnings from the Universe are subtle and may come to you in a quiet form.
13. It can be as simple as every time you walk into the room associated with that goal or thing, you begin to feel nauseous or lightheaded.
14. This is where it’s important to be in tune with your body and the subtle things that it does. It’s always reacting, whether you’re present to witness it or not.
15. I pause when I find myself experiencing negative feedback.
16. If I am pursuing something and I get a kickback, a vibe, or a sign that what is happening or what I’m doing is out of alignment with myself, I reevaluate the situation.
17. It could be that my mind is fighting change, but I know what is happening is positive for me; I might need to just understand that one fact to get on with progress.
18. It could be that what I’m feeling is actually a warning, and that it’s not something to simply be understood; it could be that you need to make an adjustment to get back in alignment or that you need to pull all the way out because the potential danger is catastrophic. 

These are not exhaustive, but they give you a bit of insight into the mental processes that I go through to evaluate my circumstances.

The thing is, we need to get really clear on our ‘Why’. I mean, so clear we can use it as glasses to help guide us to the things that will help us. Why did I use glasses and not a window? Maybe you didn’t ask, but I’m here to tell you this is key. With glasses that are equipped with lenses that show us our why, we can take them just about anywhere. Whereas with a window, it’s in a fixed position, and it doesn't even need to be clear to function as a window. Plus, with glasses, we will always have a clear image of the things that bring us closer to our achievements.

I don’t know about you, but even after all that analyzing and internal debating, coming up with a satisfying answer, I still get hit with doubt. It’s a part of the process, and it can be tricky to navigate at first. I used to give up on everything before I even really got into it. I used to think that if it didn’t come naturally, then it’s not for me, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. There are things that need to get done, and it may require a new set of skills to be learned, for you to put on a new hat, so to speak. In these instances, it’s important, again, to know what your why is and how this new skill fits into the bigger picture. That is where perseverance and adaptability come into play.

How do you know if you’re supposed to keep going or not?

The difference between typical doubt from your mind challenging you, or the Universe testing your motives, and having red flags and alarm bells go off in your head is 2 different forms of fear.

The first fear is the fear of the unknown. Until now, you have never done this before, and it may seem kind of scary. This is because our brains are wired to accept and seek familiarity. It is a leftover trait from our ancestors who literally had to survive every day, and they didn’t have much time to philosophize about life because it didn’t matter. We have the luxury of getting to think about improving our quality of life from the standpoint that our basic needs are being met. Moving to a new town or starting a new career trajectory can be scary from the outside because we don’t know how we’ll fit in or if the environment will be up to our standards. We don’t truly know anything until we try it or learn about it in depth. It’s in these situations that we must work our minds and build a bridge for us to reach this unknown part of ourselves. 

The other form of fear is less ego and more intuitive. Have you ever been offered an opportunity that seemed so fantastic, and was everything you could hope for, but there was something about it that made you uneasy? Then you come to find out later that some aspect of this opportunity is actually bunk and ends up being detrimental to you in the long run. This fear is intuitive fear, it’s that part of your body that you may have regretted not listening to, or maybe you do listen to it and take it into account. Your intuition is a powerful tool that analyses the situation without mental chatter. I believe a large part of your intuition is linked to the enteric nervous system (ENS), which runs the entire length of your gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This is a network of neurons that does way more than digest your food! It is a powerful processor that affects your mood, what you crave, how you perceive things, and when you do things.

Your gut is constantly gathering information about your internal and external environment, and this information, even though you may not be aware of it, can influence your feelings and decisions. It's like your gut has a "sixth sense" about certain situations. (Brian Donnelly)

So next time you get butterflies in your stomach, take the time to sit with the feeling and see what your body is trying to tell you, because it just might save your life.

Ok, so what does resilience have to do with corn?

If you’ve made it this far and the image at the top still isn’t resonating with you, I’ll give you my eyes for a moment, so you can see my vision.

That corn is literally bent. Like that thing is broken, and it’s still trying to raise its leaves to the sky. If you haven’t noticed, plants will actually point their leaves towards the sun so that they can create food/glucose through photosynthesis. It’s one of the easiest ways for a plant to sustain itself. This isn’t a biology class, but it is real life. Plants don’t ask for permission to do what they do, they just do it. They don’t wait for someone to allow them to reach for the sky and soak up the UV rays from the sun. So when a plant like corn (corn is modified grass, look it up) is bent or even broken, it does what it can to grow. As long as a piece of the stock is attached to the part that’s attached to the roots, it will still continue to grow. This means that the fallen portion will right itself to better absorb the sun’s rays. This means that the picture I featured for this post is a physical reminder of what it means to be resilient and to do what you can with what you have.

“We should be grounded like the trees, persistent like 'weeds', flexible like vines, and resilient like corn.”

– Jamelah Luckett

That is all for this post, dear Adventurers. If you found value or enjoyment in this message, please consider sharing it with someone who might benefit. Remember, we are all on this journey together, and the more companions we help guide, the brighter our collective future will be.

I encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments below or reach out to me through the Contact Me page or via direct message on my social media accounts (linked in the site’s footer). I look forward to connecting with you and reading your insights as I prepare for next week's adventure.

With Love,

Jamelah Luckett

P.S.- On a personal note, I recently had the opportunity to experience a bit of Garrain Jones through his Zoom Workshop, and his charisma and passion is truly inspiring. He has a workshop coming up next month in June, north of Austin, TX, focused on empowering artistic and creative individuals – something that resonates deeply with my own journey of exploring my inner child. If you're interested in joining me (or even if you're just curious!), you can sign up through this >>Link<<

As a big bonus, if you sign up through this link, you'll get 50% off, and it will also help me get funds towards my trip or a future trip with this group. It's a win-win situation!